The Haunted Woman & A Voyage to Arcturus. David Lindsay

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      “I don’t know. The victims don’t describe their experiences. Probably unhappiness of some sort—if they still know anything.”

      “This is a fearful business!” he exclaimed, regarding her gloomily. “One would think Ifdawn a land of devils.”

      Oceaxe gave a beautiful sneer as she took a step toward the river. “Better men than you—better in every sense of the word—are walking about with foreign wills inside them. You may be as moral as you like, Maskull, but the fact remains, animals were made to be eaten, and simple natures were made to be absorbed.”

      “And human rights count for nothing!”

      She had bent over the river’s edge, to wash her arms and hands, but glanced up over her shoulder to answer his remark. “They do count. But we only regard a man as human for just as long as he’s able to hold his own with others.”

      The flesh was soon cooked, and they breakfasted in silence. Maskull cast heavy, doubtful glances from time to time toward his companion. Whether it was due to the strange quality of the food, or to his long abstention, he did not know, but the meal tasted nauseous, and even cannibalistic. He ate little, and the moment he got up he felt defiled.

      “Let me bury this drude, where I can find it some other time,” said Oceaxe. “On the next occasion, though, I shall have no Maskull with me, to shock.... Now we have to take to the river.”

      They stepped off the land onto the water. It flowed against them with a sluggish current, but the opposition, instead of hindering them, had the contrary effect—it caused them to exert themselves, and they moved faster. They climbed the river in this way for several miles. The exercise gradually improved the circulation of Maskull’s blood, and he began to look at things in a far more cheerful way. The hot sunshine, the diminished wind, the marvellous cloud scenery, the quiet, crystal forests—all was soothing and delightful. They approached nearer and nearer to the gaily painted heights of Ifdawn.

      There was something enigmatic to him in those bright walls. He was attracted by them, yet felt a sort of awe. They looked real, but at the same time very supernatural. If one could see the portrait of a ghost, painted with a hard, firm outline, in substantial colors, the feelings produced by such a sight would be exactly similar to Maskull’s impressions as he studied the Ifdawn precipices.

      He broke the long silence. “Those mountains have most extraordinary shapes. All the lines are straight and perpendicular—no slopes or curves.”

      She walked backward on the water, in order to face him. “That’s typical of Ifdawn. Nature is all hammer blows with us. Nothing soft and gradual.”

      “I hear you, but I don’t understand you.”

      “All over the Marest you’ll find patches of ground plunging down or rushing up. Trees grow fast. Women and men don’t think twice before acting. One may call Ifdawn a place of quick decisions.”

      Maskull was impressed. “A fresh, wild, primitive land.”

      “How is it where you come from?” asked Oceaxe.

      “Oh, mine is a decrepit world, where nature takes a hundred years to move a foot of solid land. Men and animals go about in flocks. Originality is a lost habit.”

      “Are there women there?”

      “As with you, and not very differently formed.”

      “Do they love?”

      He laughed. “So much so that it has changed the dress, speech, and thoughts of the whole sex.”

      “Probably they are more beautiful than I?”

      “No, I think not,” said Maskull.

      There was another rather long silence, as they travelled unsteadily onward.

      “What is your business in Ifdawn?” demanded Oceaxe suddenly.

      He hesitated over his answer. “Can you grasp that it’s possible to have an aim right in front of one, so big that one can’t see it as a whole?”

      She stole a long, inquisitive look at him, “What sort of aim?”

      “A moral aim.”

      “Are you proposing to set the world right?”

      “I propose nothing—I am waiting.”

      “Don’t wait too long, for time doesn’t wait—especially in Ifdawn.”

      “Something will happen,” said Maskull.

      Oceaxe threw a subtle smile. “So you have no special destination in the Marest?”

      “No, and if you’ll permit me, I will come home with you.”

      “Singular man!” she said, with a short, thrilling laugh. “That’s what I have been offering all the time. Of course you will come home with me. As for Crimtyphon...”

      “You mentioned that name before. Who is he?”

      “Oh! My lover, or, as you would say, my husband.”

      “This doesn’t improve matters,” said Maskull.

      “It leaves them exactly where they were. We merely have to remove him.”

      “We are certainly misunderstanding each other,” said Maskull, quite startled. “Do you by any chance imagine that I am making a compact with you?”

      “You will do nothing against your will. But you have promised to come home with me.”

      “Tell me, how do you remove husbands in Ifdawn?”

      “Either you or I must kill him.”

      He eyed her for a full minute. “Now we are passing from folly to insanity.”

      “Not at all,” replied Oceaxe. “It is the too-sad truth. And when you have seen Crimtyphon, you will realise it.”

      “I’m aware I am on a strange planet,” said Maskull slowly, “where all sorts of unheard of things may happen, and where the very laws of morality may be different. Still as far as I am concerned, murder is murder, and I’ll have no more to do with a woman who wants to make use of me, to get rid of her husband.”

      “You think me wicked?” demanded Oceaxe steadily.

      “Or mad.”

      “Then you had better leave me, Maskull—only—”

      “Only what?”

      “You wish to be consistent, don’t you? Leave all other mad and wicked people as well. Then you’ll find it easier to reform the rest.”

      Maskull frowned, but said nothing.

      “Well?” demanded Oceaxe, with a half smile.

      “I’ll come with you, and I’ll see Crimtyphon—if СКАЧАТЬ